


o, heartland up yours

by spock



Category: My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Identity Swap, M/M, Post-Canon, References to Shakespeare, References to Talented Mr. Ripley, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Sometimes Mike will be in one place and then he'll close his eyes, and when he opens them again he's usually somewhere completely different. It's kind of like time travel. It's kind of good.
Relationships: Mike Waters/Original Male Character(s), Scott Favor & Mike Waters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	o, heartland up yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HannaM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannaM/gifts).



**Seattle**

A fancy little black Acura rolls down the strip, paint reflecting the blank faces of each hustler he drives past, its hood a glittering mirror of the sky. The overcast moved on about an hour ago, revealing shades of purple, a streak of orange at the horizon line, visible only if you stand just right to spot it between the buildings making up downtown, blocking the sky.

The car stops in front of Mike. He hasn't tricked a rich client in at least a month, maybe longer. Not since before Bob's funeral, anyway. That he can remember. The window rolls down and the guy inside is handsome enough, a kind face with dark hair that falls into his eyes as he leans across the center console seat to speak with Mike. "What's your rate?"

The guy has an English accent, mouth curving to round off words that didn’t need rounding. "You can afford it," Mike says, eyeing the car.

It gets a laugh. Mike peels himself from the building he'd been leaning against and walks to the curb, folding himself inside the car, careful not to slam the door behind him once he's settled. They pull off onto the road, classical music playing low on the radio. "I'm Peter." Eyes dart Mike's way before returning to the street in front of them, a quick movement. "What's your name?"

Mike forces his hands out of the pockets of his jacket, laying them flat on his thighs. He looks out the window, clocking street names as they whizz past them, not one of the traffic lights daring to be anything but green for this man.

"Scott," Mike says.

One of Peter's hands comes off the steering wheel, settling over where Mike's got his folded on his thigh. Peter doesn't say anything else as they make their way out of Mike's part of town and into the city proper.

They park in front of Peter's hotel and a valet falls over himself to meet Peter at his door, opening it and taking the keys. It's so nice inside that the staff don't so much as look at Mike, discretion prioritized over the need to protect an image. Peter's hand settles at the base of his spine once they hit the lobby and it stays there in the elevator, down the hallway, solid and firm as he gets his key out of his coat pocket and lets them into his room on the top floor.

Peter starts turning lights on once the door is shut behind them, and it startles Mike. His hands come up to his elbows, hugging himself as he steps around the large, empty span of living space, the bed visible in a room just off it. He twitches once, hard, and squeezes his eyes shut.

A hand grips his elbow, soft, turning him. Mike blinks his eyes open and sees nothing but stars for a moment before the shape of Peter starts to peek through, coming into focus. "Here," he says, gentle, as he awkwardly helps Mike shrug out of his jacket. Peter walks it back towards the door, hanging it up in the little closet there before taking off his own and doing the same. It's so strange, seeing their clothes hang next to one another. Mike fixates on it until Peter closes the door, blinking it out of sight.

"Would you like anything to drink?"

Mike looks at Peter's eyes, his lips, the curve of his cheekbone, his ear. "No," he says. One of his hands comes up between them, fingers curled towards Peter as Peter walks back towards him. Mike yanks it back the second he realizes what it is he's doing, making a fist down by his sides. He turns to look out the wall of windows to their left. "You?"

Peter sways in close, going hazy. His nose brushes the stubble on Mike's cheek. "No," he says, sounding amused but in a nice sort of way. "I'm alright. Thank you, Scott."

Mike twitches again. He brings one hand up to his mouth, thumbing his lip. The other one tugs at his hair, mussing it up. "You're, like," he struggles for the word, "unbelievably charming, huh?"

Warm breath fans across Mike's cheek. A quiet laugh. Peter pulls back and smiles at him, a little sad. "It's been said."

Mike nods, because he figured as much. He pulls away from Peter, walking towards the bedroom. He sits down on the mattress, kicking off his shoes, and stares through the door, past the short hallway and back to Peter in the living space. He watches as Peter makes the same pilgrimage until he's standing in front of Mike, staring into his eyes.

Peter's hand settles warm on his cheek. "Scott," he says, once, and then sits down, close enough that their knees are touching. Peter falls onto his back, duvet so soft it doesn't make a crinkly sound like all the hotel sheets Mike's used to. His fingers go to the fly of his pants. Mike copies him, laying down too, wiggling out of his too-tight white jeans, not bothering to take off his socks.

They end up under the covers, naked except for Mike’s socks, Peter clutching at him, face buried in Mike's neck. His dick is a hard line at Mike's hip, hips rolling. "Would it be alright, Scott? If I," Peter can't seem to get out whatever it is that he wants to do, to finish the question. Mike feels like he's floating, everything soft and warm, Peter a heavy weight that he doesn't mind, a clean scent that Mike thinks he'll remember forever. His own dick is an obnoxious tent in front of them, messing up the smooth line of the blanket. Mike doesn't feel any pressing need to deal with it, almost like he's high. "Sure," he says, saving Peter from having to ask.

Peter makes an eager noise right before his lips connect with Mike's neck, sucking, tiny bites that don't even hurt. He comes that way, Mike's skin on his tongue, his dick having found a home in the groove of Mike's abdomen, getting Mike's stomach all sticky.

He offers Mike a shower, after. Mike waves him off, nervous, still hard enough that it hurts as he stuffs his erection back into his jeans and does up the buttons. Peter looks too good; Mike keeps his eyes fixed to the floor as Peter gets up from bed, knees bent like he doesn't have the strength to stand up all the way, fingers fishing his wallet from his pants where they’d been abandoned on the floor. He walks over to where Mike's managed to get himself twisted up in his t-shirt, helping him pull it down his back, stomach, those same fingers gently tucking it into the waistband of Mike's jeans.

Four crisp hundred dollar bills fan between them.

Mike shakes his head. "That's too much." Mike almost wishes that Peter had forgotten to pay. That Mike could have snuck out before either of them remembered that's what this was. He watches as Peter folds the money in half, thirds, until it's in a small enough rectangle to fit in the squares of Mike's pockets, Peter's fingers hooking to tug at the fabric once he's tucked it away there.

"Have a good evening, Scott," he says, soft.

Regret surges through Mike, a crack of lightning up his spine, making him stand up straight and sniff. He nods, turns, picks up his shoes in either hand and makes his way back to the room's door. It's raining outside, he can see it through all those windows. It reminds him to collect his jacket from the little closet, even though it hasn't got a hood.

He's standing out in the hallway, alone, in no time at all, blinking hard, snorting to himself.

"Hey, Mikey."

Scott's down by the elevator, smoking. Mike stops blinking. His feet start moving, socked steps taking him down, down, down until he's standing next to Scott, done up in his nice three-piece suit, hair slicked back. He offers Mike a drag off his cigarette.

Mike remembers that does need to blink again eventually. That there's a happy medium between too much and not at all.

"I quit," he says, before dropping down to sit on the floor, stuffing his feet into his boots.

A considering noise comes from above him. "I'd heard."

Mike curls in on himself for a moment, squeezing his knees to his chest, wanting to ask ‘who from?’ but knowing better. He brings his thumb up to his mouth, biting at the nail, skin. His hand still smells like Peter. Mike brings it up further, under his nose, breathing. "Aren't you, uh," he breathes out, eyelashes fluttering, "aren't you not supposed to do stuff like that in places like this?"

He stands up. His line of vision always ends up around Scott's nose, his mouth. He's smiling, which Mike hasn't seen him doing much of lately, not any of the times Mike’s caught sight of him through the tinted windows of his fancy town car, or through any of the windows of the restaurants or boutiques he frequents.

That's Mike's life now. Glimpses of Scott through panes of glass.

"Places like this?" Scott repeats. He sounds amused. Mike hates it. He becomes aware of the money in his pocket, Peter's come still tacky beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. "I can do anything I like, anywhere."

His eyes flick up to Scott's, just for a moment. It isn't true, Mike thinks. But doesn't say, not aloud. Except he does, under his breath, mumbling. Mike’s eyes stare into Scott's even though Mike’s still got his chin tilted down, and sees the exact second that it takes for the warm look that's lingering around the edge of Scott's irises to die away, his eyes going flat, cold.

Scott's face becomes a mask, beautiful and perfect. Angry. "I own the hotel."

Mike nods, a full-bodied twitch. "Figures," he says. He sniffs, trying to remember where it is around this part of town that he can score. The quicker the better. He jabs a finger, calling the elevator.

It dings right away, opening at their floor. His eyes dart back to Scott, wondering. "Well," the word hangs, taking up all the space in the hallway, empty save for them. "Have a good evening, Scott."

He steps inside, pressing the button that'll send him careening down to the lobby.

"Yeah," Scott says. "You too, Mike."

Mike dozes at the laundromat, watching his clothes spin round and round across the aisle from his chair, slumped over and folded into himself. A few seats down is this college kid, book open on his lap and pencil tucked behind his ear. He hasn’t turned a page in at least fifteen minutes, by Mike’s count, too busy staring at Mike to focus on whatever it is that he should be studying. Mike’s been pretending that he hasn’t noticed, lip twitching at the corner of his mouth, threatening to give him away.

The machine buzzes, switching off. Mike springs up. He opens the door and grabs the modest, damp collection of his clothes, skipping over to the side of the building that houses the dryers. He bends himself in half to shove them into one of the machines on the bottom row, pushing them back as far as he can.

It turns out that he’s a quarter short. He turns around, looking at the college kid. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have one I could borrow, do ya?”

That textbook of his gets shoved into an empty seat, the kid reaching into his backpack with such haste that makes it seem like he’s worried that Mike will tell him to forget it if it doesn’t happen fast enough. Mike makes sure that their fingers touch when he takes it from him, grin spanning from ear to ear as he says, “thanks!”

The dryer starts spinning to life and Mike leaves it to do his thing, walking back to the middle of the room to sit next to the kid. He reaches across his lap to the other chair where he’d moved the textbook, holding it upside down and turning to a random page. “What class is this for?”

“Oh, um. Aeronautics.”

Mike blinks. “Wow,” he says. “You wanna be an astronaut or something?”

Hands settle over his, turning the book the right side up. The kid looks shy, pleased to have their fingers touching. “Definitely not smart enough for that,” he laughs. “I’d like to design planes for Boeing.” His eyes finally meet Mike’s for a second before darting away again. “Are you studying anything? Or,” he seems to realize that Mike is a little older than him, “What do you do?”

It’s been a while since someone looked at Mike and didn’t immediately clock him as a hustler. Since someone saw him as more than a gutter punk willing to do anything and everything for his next fix or some food, in that order.

Mike doesn’t want to lose this, even if it’s a fantasy. He licks his lips, and tries to relax, kicking his legs out in front of him into the aisle, running his fingers through his hair until it isn’t such a wild mess. Trying to make it seem like this is his day off, casual, and not his typical state of being. “I work for the mayor’s office,” he says.

**Portland**

Gary’s gotten and lost four jobs in as many months. Two jobs ago he’d invited Mike down to stay with him, a particularly vicious winter having arrived in Seattle, the streets too cold to really sleep on unless one had no other options. Mike had been surprised that Gary’d had an actual apartment, one with doors with locks that Gary had the keys to open. One where he paid rent.

Mike thought about going straight too, considered getting a job cleaning up after-hours at the library like the paper he was reading advertised. Then a trick smiled at him from across the diner where he was reading that paper, and Mike followed him out to the alley. He made ten dollars in a little less than twenty minutes, a going rate that no job was likely to give him, and that was that.

He helps out with the rent by turning tricks and gets to have a room all to himself for his trouble, thrift store blankets piled high on a mattress on the floor, neither of them really able to afford to keep the heater running through the night. Mike drops into bed each night wondering if this is what making it feels like.

It’s raining, something he never really liked when he was sleeping under plastic tarps and bridges. It’s calming now, listening to water patter into the windows of his bedroom, gently shaking the fire escape beyond it. Mike lays in bed and listens. His eyes close for longer and longer intervals, letting himself drift.

There’s the sound of his window clicking open, the lock on it broken by the last tenant. Usually it’s fine as it is, but sometimes a good gust of wind can push it open, and that’s what Mike thinks has happened until something lifts his mountain of blankets, joins him on the mattress. He twitches awake, eyes blind in the dark of his room.

It’s Scott, still fully-clothed, wet jacket getting Mike’s sheets damp. “What?” Mike asks. He bites his lip, turning on his side to look at Scott face-on. The arm he isn’t laying on grabs at Scott’s shirt. “What are you doing here?” His bangs are plastered to his forehead, and it makes him look young. Mike hasn’t seen him look like this in a long time.

Scott doesn’t say anything, just leans in so close that Mike is terrified for a moment that Scott’s going to kiss him. It would mean that this has to be a dream, that Scott isn’t here at all - that Mike’s mind is being cruel to him in new and exciting ways. That maybe making it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, if having stability means that his brain has enough free time to torture him like this.

But Scott doesn’t kiss him, just drops his forehead to Mike’s naked chest as he reaches behind himself, pulling off his jacket and pushing it out from beneath the covers until it’s on the floor. He has his suit on beneath it, and the takes that off too, kicking off his shoes, fingers working quick over buttons, shrugging off his vest, shirt, undoing his pants, kicking it all down to the foot of the bed until he isn’t in anything but his underwear, his cold toes pressing into Mike’s calf.

“I’m leaving,” Scott says.

Mike sniffs. “My bed?”

Scott’s cold fingers span across the curve of Mike’s ribs, resting in the divots. He shifts closer, hugging Mike to him, so that they’re breathing the same air. “No.”

Mike can’t look at his face, even though he can practically feel Scott’s gaze on his face. “Where’s your wife?” he asks.

Scott’s nose is cold too, dragging over Mike’s forehead, chased by the warm sensation of his breath. “What about her?” His fingers start stroking along Mike’s flank, petting him. “She stopped being mine the minute my mother’s finger graced the threshold of her finger.”

Mike doesn’t want to do this. “Where are you leaving to?”

The bed dips, Scott shifting down the mattress, forcing his face into Mike’s line of sight. Mike squeezes his eyes closed, like looking at Scott straight-on might turn him into stone. “Have you got any money?” Scott asks back.

“That’s rich,” Mike says, still refusing to open his eyes. “I don’t pay for it, remember? I’d do it for free.”

Scott’s lips brush against his cheek. “Or not at all.” One of his hands grabs Mike’s thigh, pulling, until Mike’s got it hooked over Scott’s hip, Scott now between his legs. “Do you ever think back? To the beginning,” he’s talking into Mike’s ear. His voice is so soft that it starts to blend in with the rain still coming down outside, calming Mike’s thundering heart. “If we maybe could’ve said no, but we missed the chance to.”

Mike’s hands shake as they come up to rest on Scott’s shoulders. His skin is warming up, leeching heat from Mike’s body, the blankets. Mike traces his fingers up Scott’s neck, gathering up all his courage to slide up into Scott’s hair. Scott always used to hold him, cradling Mike’s body after any number of his fits, protecting him. Mike thinks about that time out in the desert, when he’d told Mike that he’d loved him, and Mike had held him like he was doing Mike a favor by not giving Mike all the things he’d given to Bob.

How that had marked the beginning of the end for them. “Every exit’s just an entrance to somewhere else.”

Scott’s dick is hard, pressing into Mike’s stomach. He laughs. “Damn, Mikey, that’s poetry.” He presses his head back into Mike’s hands, encouraging him. “I’m surrounded by people with a concatenation of letters after their fucking name, and not a single one of them could come up with something so profound.”

Mike wants to tell him to leave. Doesn’t dare, too terrified to lose this, to have Scott disappear a second time and never come back. “Where are you leaving to?” he asks again.

Scott’s hold on him tightens, pulling Mike close enough that he can hook his chin over Mike’s shoulder, hugging him. “We cross our bridges when we come to them, and then burn them behind us with nothing to show for our progress except memory. The smell of smoke,” he laughs, “A presumption that once upon a time, our eyes watered.”

Mike’s lashes start to flutter, his muscles twitching and going lax in random intervals, dropping into a fit.

He wakes up the next morning in an empty bed, Scott gone. His clothes are still on the floor, the most expensive things in the room by a long mile. The chest of drawers that Mike salvaged from the side of the road has a drawer open. Mike gets up and sees that his favorite sweater is missing, along with a pair of jeans he never really wore. He does a circuit of the apartment, a small part of him hoping to find Scott in the shower, maybe burning a pot in the kitchen, but it’s empty, not even Gary around for his trouble.

Mike returns to his room and dresses in Scott’s clothes, pulling the neckline of Scott’s sweater up to his nose and breathing in deeply. Scott hadn’t worn cologne back when he’d run around with them, but the scent suits him, musky and woodsy at the same time. The last thing he picks up is Scott’s long jacket, still a bit damp for having spent the night on the floor.

Sitting down on the mattress, Mike feels through Scott’s pockets and blinks at what he finds. Scott’s wallet, his passport, tickets: two of them, for a flight leaving to Athens that afternoon. Mike blinks at them, checking the time on Scott’s watch at his wrist. “Shit.”

He uses some of the money in Scott’s wallet to pay for the taxi that takes him to PDX, looking around the International Departures terminal for any sight of where Scott might be. A security guard wanders closer to him and Mike starts building his explanation in his head, ready to make a scene if they try to throw him out when he’s only trying to help out a friend, but the guard keeps on walking, giving him a smile as he moves on.

Mike blinks and goes to the line for the airline that the tickets belong to. “Uh, hi, I’m,” he starts, wondering if airports have things like lost and founds or if he’ll sound like an idiot for asking.

“Passport,” the woman says, accent thick and face impassive. Mike blinks and then fumbles for Scott’s passport. He’d folded the tickets inside so that he wouldn’t lose them, and she takes both, glancing at one and then stamping the other. “Gate 32.”

“Um,” Mike says, “wait.”

She looks tired of him already, and a line has started to form at his back, the rest of the flight’s passengers coming to check in. “Scott Favor?” she asks, though Scott’s name sounds entirely foreign on her lips. He nods. “Gate 32.”

“Oh,” Mike twitches to the side, taking back Scott’s passport, the tickets. “Alright, thanks.”

The airport is confusing, too many hallways, everyone doing everything they can from looking at one another. Eventually he finds the gate, looking around for Scott, eager to pass over his belongings, to ask who that second ticket is for, not allowing himself to think that it might be for him. He wants to know why Scott left without saying goodbye, why he left his clothes behind and stole some of Mikes.

Scott isn’t there, must be in the bathroom or something, so Mike sits down to wait. He wakes up to an attendant shaking him, telling him that the flight is boarding. Mike walks along the jetway feeling like this is all a dream, and maybe it is. He gets a seat at the window, the one next to him empty.

Mike spends the entire flight fully expecting Scott to skip down the aisle and join him, but he never does.

**Athens**

Mike drifts into a bathroom after they deboard the plane, splashing water onto his face and wondering just what in the fuck it is that he’ll do now. He runs his hands over his hair, pushing it from his face, using the water to slick it back.

There’s a man with a sign reading FAVOR at the departures gate. Mike meets his eye and he perks up, smiling at Mike and waving. “Mr. Favor,” he says, once Mike’s reached him. “Your bags?”

Mike licks his lips and fights against the urge to hug himself. He clears his throat. “Didn’t bring any.”

The driver nods, as if that’s normal. “There are clothes at the house,” he says, and then escorts Mike out of the airport to his car, driving them through the narrow streets until they reach an apartment that is as fully furnished as promised, right down to the clothes in the closet.

Mike almost asks him to stay, not wanting to be alone in this place, but there’s only so long that anyone can be around him before they realize that he’s nothing like Scott, that this is all wrong, and then where will he be?

The door closes with a thud and Mike is left standing in the hallway, not knowing what to do with himself. He shrugs out of Scott’s clothes right there and walks naked through the house, discovering the bathroom and running himself a bath. There’s sounds of life coming from outside the window, Greeks shouting at one another in the streets. Mike sits in the water until his skin is all pruned up, until the water has gone cold and he can’t take it anymore.

He drips into the bedroom, letting the soft sheets dry him. Mike closes his eyes and wonders what the next day might bring.

It turns out that the next day brings more of the same, a pattern that continues for the rest of the week. Mike goes to the cafe on the corner, spending Scott’s money. He wanders around the neighborhood, acquainting himself with the landmarks. Most everywhere he can reach just by walking, and so he spends his time doing as much, sitting and wasting time, wondering when someone will realize what’s happened.

When Scott will show up and explain what this is all about.

Eventually, the phone inside the apartment rings, and Mike hesitates before answering. “Hello?”

There’s a woman crying on the other end of the line. “Who is this?” she demands, and her accent isn’t as strong as it once was, but the sound of Carmela’s voice is still enough to make a frown carve itself onto Mike’s face. “Where’s Scott?”

“I don’t know,” Mike sniffs.

“Don’t lie to me!” Carmela sounds manic, like she’s had this conversation before and already knows how it goes. “I called the airline. Two tickets, they said. I know he went.”

Mike’s shaking his head, but she can’t see that, so he says, “no,” but then she’s shouting again, in Italian, so Mike doesn’t know the details of her particular anguish, just the sound of it. The shape.

A sound comes from the hallway, and Mike sees movement past the door. “Oh shit,” he says, “Shit, sorry, I think that’s Scott.” Her scream is cut off by Mike dropping the phone back onto the receiver, jumping up and running after Scott. “Hey!” he shouts. “Asshole!”

The door slams shut before Mike can reach it, but he yanks it back open, not bothering to lock it behind himself, running down the stairwell to the bottom. He spills out onto the street where it’s the middle of the afternoon, tourists wandering through, locals heading off to lunch, children done with their lessons for a while. He can’t see Scott anymore, but Mike doesn’t let that dissuade him.

He searches all the places he thinks Scott might go, all the little places he’s discovered. He ends up on the dividing line, where the affluent spread of Scott’s neighborhood shifts into where everyone else lives, graffiti placed on top of stone that might be thousands of years old, like this is how things have always been.

There’s a group of guys hanging around, obviously working. One of them catches sight of Mike and grins.

Nobody’s ever looked at him like that. As if he’d make for a good date.

He breaks off from his friends, coming over Mike’s way. “American?” he asks. Mike can only nod, shly, and it turns out not to matter because that’s the full extent of his English. He touches his finger’s to Mike’s. They’re pretty much the same height, but his hands are bigger, his body broader. “Yiannis,” he says, and it takes Mike a second to get that it’s his name.

“Yiannis,” he repeats. It doesn’t sound like how Yiannis had said it, but he doesn’t seem to mind, smiling more, expectant.

Mike twitches, reaching up to flick his nose. “I’m Scott,” he says, “But you can call me Mike.”

“Mike,” Yiannis says, only when he does it sounds like there’s a ‘y’ in there, somehow. Mike likes it.

“Yeah,” he nods, “Mike,” pronouncing it like Yiannis had.

It isn’t hard to do this dance from the other side of things, taking Yiannis’ hand and leading him back to Scott’s apartment, untouched despite him having left it unlocked. A part of Mike hopes to find Scott inside, but it’s empty, just Yiannis and he left to stand in the hallway.

Yiannis looks around, inspecting all the art lining the bone-white of the walls, the colorful tiles of the floor. “I’ve never paid for it before,” he confesses, making Yiannis startle. He comes back to Mike’s side, touching his fingers again, taking his hand.

“I knew a guy that said that doing it for free was the worst thing.” Yiannis’ fingers come up to trace Mike’s bottom lip, thumb curving around the cut of his jaw. “What do you think he’d say about me paying for it.”

“Mike,” Yiannis says, pointer fingering tracing the slope of his nose.

“Yeah, alright,” Mike nods, pushing Yiannis’ jacket from his shoulders. “I’ll shut up.”

He hadn’t realized how cold it’d been outside until he feels the warmth of Yiannis' body against his. He’d run after Scott without bothering with a coat, had spent a good twenty minutes out in the cold, chasing after him. Yiannis warms him now, kissing him, taking Mike by the hand and leading him through Scott’s house until he manages to guess his way into the bedroom with a surety Mike’s never managed to feel outside of times like this, on a date with some repressed, rich bastard that needed him to take the lead for them to get anywhere.

It’s strange to think of himself like that, but he lets Yiannis guide him anyway, down onto the bed until he’s sitting in Yiannis’ lap, feeling those big, warm hands trace circles into his back as they kiss.

He starts to shiver, hard enough that he wonders if something’s led him into a fit. Yiannis holds him tighter, rolls them so that Mike’s on his back and Yiannis is a crushing weight on top of him that feels so perfect that Mike could cry.

They take a shower together, after, Mike haltingly offering to show Yiannis out, digging a few bills out from Scott’s wallet and setting it on the bed between them, expecting the the date to end, for Yiannis to follow him into the bathroom, saying something in Greek that he doesn’t understand.

His strong hands feel good against Mike’s scalp, working conditioner into Mike’s hair. Mike starts to think about his childhood, his mother, and feels his eyes begin to flutter, everything tilting sideways, but then Yiannis moves in, kissing him like he’d done when Mike had started to tremble on the bed, bringing him back to the present. “Fuck,” Mike says, speaking against Yiannis’s lips, feeling drunk. “You’re magic.”

Yiannis grins, like maybe he understood that, and then pulls off, rinsing himself down. The water pressure is awful, and Mike has always preferred baths, but it’s nice, standing next to Yiannis as they hold the faucet over their heads, almost like they’re waiting for a Portland downpour to move on so that they can go about their day.

Mike wears a robe while Yiannis gets dressed, stuffing himself into too-tight jeans that Mike doesn’t miss. “I was a hustler too, you know,” he says, watching Yiannis pull a knit-sweater over his t-shirt. “Back in America. Before I became Scott.”

Yiannis sits next to him on the bed and makes a show of reaching for the money they’d left there before they’d gone to bath, stretching so that his sweater and t-shirt ride up, showing the hairy span of his abdomen, the pronounced sculpture of his abs. Mike knows exactly what he’s doing but watches anyway, floating on the feeling of having someone to talk to after more than a week of being alone, of halting conversations in broken English with poor waiters trying to take his order. Yiannis sits back up, smiling at him.

“Scott?” he asks, pronouncing it perfectly.

Mike nods, “Yeah, Scott.” His thumb comes up to his mouth, his teeth worrying the nail. “He turned tricks too, but it was just a game to him. This is actually —”

Yiannis cuts him off with a kiss, licking dirty into Mike’s mouth. When he pulls back Mike feels dazed, blinking as his head rocks forwards a bit, wanting another one.

Tapping his finger to Mike’s nose, Yiannis makes a face. “Mike,” he says, the phantom ‘y’ still there, and then smiles. He leaves Mike on the bed, loud footsteps echoing through the house, the door slamming behind him as he lets himself out.

Mike decides that he should probably do something while he’s here, make the most of it before Carmela alerts the authorities or Scott shows back up, deciding that he’s tired of this game, just as he’s tired with all the one’s before it. He walks up the hill to the Acropolis, digging through Scott’s pockets to cover the admission and wandering away from the too-loud tour groups and their guides.

Scott’s apartment is visible from from the top of the hill, one building among many.

He holds his hand up to his face, looking between his fingers down at the city below, turning on his heels to look at the ruins of that ancient building behind him, still standing at the top.

Thousands of years ago there might have been some Athenian who did the same thing that Mike does, who looked out at the city below and recognized it like a fucked up face, one of a kind, the only one in the whole-wide world. Mike wonders if that same guy could look out it again now and still recognize it. Maybe he’d take Mike’s word for it, that it was the same place as the one he knew, all those years ago. Maybe he’d look at a piece of paper saying it was Athens and buy it, even if he knew it looked wrong.

“Scott?” Mike turns to see Peter, dressed from head to toe in sandy linen, the picture of a tourist. He’s got fashionable sunglasses balanced on his nose, which he pushes down to look at Mike in the eye. “It was Scott, right?” he asks again, sounding like he realizes that’s the better question, less obvious than admitting that he remembers the name of a hustler he selpt with four months and a whole other continent back.

Mike lowers his hand, nervously flexing it into a fist at his side. “Peter, hi,” he says.

Relief washes over Peter’s face, though Mike doesn’t know if it’s for Mike remembering his name or Peter being correct in his guess. “What on earth are you doing here?” Mike watches him take in Scott’s clothes, how different Mike must look from their only other encounter.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, looking past Peter to the crowds of people, snapping photos of one another, stepping on ancient dirt like it isn’t sacred.

“Have you ever pretended to be someone else?” He asks, and then realizes that isn’t what he really means. “Or, like, pretended to have someone else's life?” Peter’s looking at him like he’s fascinating, more captivating than a landmark of civilizations past, like every word he’s saying actually means something.

Mike recognizes the expression, the slight parting of his lips. It used to grace his own face, once upon a time.

He shakes his head and laughs. “My father was an asshole,” he says, and at least that’s true, even if what comes after isn’t. “And then he died, so I went back home.”

“Oh,” Peter says. His tone holds some greater wisdom than Mike himself has. He realizes that Peter’s about five, maybe ten or so years older than him, and maybe that’s unlocked some level of understanding than Mike has. They say stuff like that happens, in books and films and things. “Would you maybe, well.” His hand comes up to touch Mike’s elbow. “What do you say we start again, hm?” He takes a step back, putting some distance between them and extending a hand to Mike. “I’m Peter.”

Mike blinks, reaching out to take Peter’s hand, shaking it awkwardly.

He licks his lips and wonders just what name will come out when he opens his mouth.


End file.
